Is Cardigan the forgotten village?

WITH concerns regarding the safety of the gutters, footpaths and recreation sites in the residential area at Cardigan Village, residents fear that their needs have been forgotten.

Chairperson for the Committee for Cardigan Village Blake Curran said the group has identified a variety of unacceptable and unsafe infrastructural issues in the area.

“The guttering issue is just getting worse, some areas are at least a metre deep because it’s created eroded guttering all the way through the Cardigan Village,” he said.

“Our recreational facilities are also incredibly sub-standard with no maintenance, the tennis courts are covered in cracks, with unsafe lights that were apparently being removed months ago due to their risk to residents yet are still standing.

“We’re the forgotten village.”

Although, Gull and Company initially developed the land around 20 years ago, residents have been calling for the City to maintain the area to a minimum standard of safety for years.

Mr Curran said so many of the issues faced in the Village are due to poor planning but continue to exist because of poor management.

“We’re told that we’re not getting curbing and guttering because it’s too expensive but the 2040 township plan says that we are to have proper guttering, curb and channelling,” he said.

“The tennis court was also meant to be re-done as a multipurpose sports place but it just hasn’t happened.

“We just want functional guttering that’s not a safety issue.”

Although several councillors have engaged with the issues and there has been plans to improve the area over the years, Mr Curran said the problems are yet to be seen, let alone fixed.

“In the 2040 plan, it says we are set to get curbed and channelling and we have got in touch with the council and we have been told they would start construction,” he said.

“We were then told it wasn’t going to happen, only in one small area, because of budgetary issues but still nothing’s happened.

“We’re not getting any timelines on things when we have been asking constantly.”

When asked about the Cardigan Village improvements, a City of Ballarat spokesperson confirmed the design has been completed for the rehabilitation of Cardigan Village’s worst affected table drains to be completed early 2021.

However, no footpaths have been funded at this stage and there is no funding allocated for the tennis court and lighting repairs for Cardigan Village.

In response, Mr Curran said he doesn’t understand how if councillors have been tabling the issue over the last two terms, that nothing has been done.

“My worry is it’s just going to keep being promised but never get fixed,” he said.

“We were told that works were happening December last year and it’s now another year and it hasn’t happened and they just keep developing other places.

“All of the candidates for the North Ward are promising it’s going to get fixed, but what if that doesn’t happen?”